You raise a good question. Clinical Psychologist, Seth Meyers wrote a blog response in 2012 entitled: During Sex, Is It Okay to Fantasize About Someone Else? Why? Fantasies can be harmless or hurtful. He gives a great rabbinic answer: “Yes and No.” He believes that there are natural instincts for someone to see others as attractive and even have affection for them. He also argues that no one individual can meet all of our needs -- all of the time. He encourages partners in the couple to maintain their individuality and for the partner to give the other a certain freedom to be the person they need to be.

However he addresses the question you ask with greater detail. Rightly so, he believes there is no partner who ever wants to be in the middle of an intimate moment and wonder if their partner is thinking about someone else. While members of a couple may have a fantasy about another person, it is not natural to do so in the midst of the act with your partner. In fact, if it is happening more often, then you may be using it as a coping mechanism for handling your feelings about your relationship. You should examine what is bothering you about the other person. Are you bored of the relationship, are you angry or disturbed by something your partner had done? In fact, instead of giving yourself permission to think about others, you may want to explore what is wrong in your relationship.

Both Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Rabbi Shmuely Boteach have passages in their books that while fantasies may happen, we should be working on strengthening our relationship with our partner. Our Sages took into account that human beings are built for procreation and pleasure. Both are important in the relationship going so far as to indicate that a man’s responsibility is to ensure the pleasure of his spouse and that both should bring a sense of modesty and sacredness into the relationship. Doing so helps to bring passion and energy to what is a most intimate act.

One of my favorite teachings is about the Hebrew words for man and woman – Eesh and Eesha. If you remove one letter from each word, you are left with the word for fire. Fire can be a synonym for passion. The letters removed are “yud” and “hay” which together spell a name of God. If the Divine Presence is with a man and a woman, all is well, but without that Divine Presence, the fire becomes destructive in nature. So my answer is that while fantasies may happen, it is important to work on your relationship with your spouse so at the most intimate of moments, you are both in that sacred moment giving to each other the needed affection, love and passion that should exist between spouse.

Question: Children are commanded to honor their parents. How are parents commanded to treat their children? Is a parent who seeks to destroy their child through abuse still considered a parent?
{Administrator's Note: Related questions about honoring parents are found on JVO at:
http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/question.php?id=546
http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/question.php?id=132
http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/question.php?id=160
http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/question.php?id=1188]

What do children owe their parents? We owe them Kavod (honor/respect) and Yirah (awe). Easier said than done especially in the case when the parent(s) have abused and hurt their children. Nowhere in our tradition, do we owe our parents love.

Other Colleagues on Jewish Values Online have answered this type of question more eloquently than I about our obligations to our parents especially when a parent is abusive and seeks to destroy our lives, so I want to focus my answer on our own souls. What do we receive for offering respect to a parent even if they are abusive and hurtful?

Our mission in life is to strive to be the best individual we can be, to be an example to others and to let others know that individuals and communities are strengthened when we respect one another and remember that each person is created in God’s image. Even the most hurtful and abusive parent is still one of God’s creatures. We are not commanded to like them or to love them, just to offer our respect to them. It may seem counterintuitive to respect the abuser but it will make it easier for the one abused to let go of the anger, the pain and hurt they feel. More importantly offering respect even to the abused parent is an example to others of how we can strive to be better people. Our goal then is not to worry about the feelings of the parent, it is to worry about what others learn from us in how we treat others including an abusive parent. One the most profound lessons, I learned is from my children and my students who look to me, as a Rabbi and parent, to know how to live a life of respect and honor. They remember my words and my actions. If I act with respect toward someone who has hurt me, others will learn they can too. The pain, the anger, and the abuse are real but they do not have to be passed on to the next person. In that moment of learning, we strengthen the community and people learn how to break what may be a cycle of abuse and hurt whether it be in a family or in a community and thus we become stronger.

In the Conservative Movement’s Mahzor Lev Shalem, Robert Saks wrote a beautiful Yizkor meditation in memory of a parent who was hurtful, its words teach me that I have a choice to let go the wrong perpetrated against me so that others will not be hurt in the future.

Dear God,

You know my heart. Indeed, You know me better than I know myself, so I turn to You before I rise for Kaddish. My emotions swirl as I say this prayer. The parent I remember was not kind to me. His/her death left me with a legacy of unhealed wounds, of anger and of dismay that a parent could hurt a child as I was hurt. I do not want to pretend to love, or to grief that I do not feel, but I do want to do what is right as a Jew and as a child. Help me, O God, to subdue my bitter emotions that do me no good, and to find that place in myself where happier memories may lie hidden, and where grief for all that could have been, all that should have been, may be calmed by forgiveness, or at least soothed by the passage of time. I pray that You who raise up slaves to freedom, will liberate me from the oppression of my hurt and anger, and that You will lead me from this desert to Your holy place. (Page 292, Mahzor Lev Shalem)

Question: My question is on the fear of G-d. I have always found this concept difficult to understand. For example I try to keep as many of the mitzvoth as I can because I want to and I am a follower of Judaism for the same reason not because of fear. I do not believe that G-d will destroy me if I do not follow a commandment. I believe in G-d and respect him, but I do not fear him. Is there a way to better understand this concept?

The concept that you refer to in Hebrew is Yirat Hashem. We often refer to it as Fear of God but in reality, Yirat Hashem is better translated as the "awesomeness of God." Proverbs 28:14 teaches, “Praiseworthy is the person who is always filled with awe.”Yirat Hashem is being in awe of God which includes the Divinity and the majesty of the world. Yirat Hasham is an invitation for us to seek and to renew our relationship with God on a regular basis

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As with any relationship, we may fear the loss of connection because we make mistakes or don’t do what we are supposed to do but God understands that because the Mitzvot and the concept of Yirat Hashem remind us that we should live purposeful and meaningful lives. The Mitzvot are the medium by which we interact with God but Yirat Hashem is the way in which we view God and the world. Feeling Yirat Hasham has little to do with the mitzvot we choose to perform or not although they will add to the holiness to the moment. Instead Yirat Hashem is more about attitude. If we hold the world in reverence then it will be special, if not then we won’t feel a thing. This reminds me of the other night when I arrived home late at night. I happen to glance into the sky and saw the millions of stars. I could have lamented the lateness of the hour and the darkness surrounding me or I could look up into the sky and see the vastness of space and the wondrous possibilities of what the future may hold for me. Recognizing the grandeur of the moment is being filled with awe and having Yirat Hashem.

Question: I am a non-denominationally affiliated Jew. I am not frum, but I am constantly working on observing more mitzvot and find myself enjoying different things about Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox communities. I want to know what the stance would be on me wearing a tallit katan. Up until this point I have not because I feel like it would be misrepresenting myself (I already wear a kippah and that alone often leads people to think i'm Hareidi even). It is not that I am offended by being seen as Orthodox, quite the opposite - I don't think I deserve to be viewed as that observant when I am not. I do not want to do something akin to chillul Hashem (or rather.... hillul frum communities? if that makes sense?) if I were ever to do something not-frum while donning them. However on the other hand I hold a firm belief that the mitzvot are not dependent on each other, and that every little step is progress. I also think that if a mitzvah or custom is going to make me better and has a meaningful significance to me, then it is appropriate to observe it. What are your thoughts, either on the points I mentioned, or new points all together in regards to a more "liberal" Jew wearing a tallit katan? Thank you for your time and knowledge.

My first reaction to your thoughtful question is that each of us is a work in progress and through our actions we strive to be more holy and we do so through the medium of the mitzvot and rituals we follow. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, In this world, music is played on physical instruments, and to the Jew, the mitzvot are the instruments by which the holy is performed. (Man’s Quest for God, page 111). By wearing tallit katan, as with every mitzvah, we have the opportunity to strive for a way of life which helps us to explore our relationship with God, engage in our faith and to be a better person. Judaism is not an all or nothing faith, in fact we are taught to question in a way that will deepen our understanding of the rituals that we do observe and as appropriate add more mitzvot and rituals.

Ask yourself, by wearing Tallit Katan, what am I accomplishing for myself? Have I deepened my understanding of the mitzvot in some way? Am I striving to be a person more engaged with the mitzvot because the tallit katan provides a daily reminder? By wearing tallit katan, am I striving to be a better person? A more holy person?

I started to wear Tallit katan as a college student living in Israel. I saw it as a way to be more “religious” in practice. Since that time, I have come to see wearing tallit katan as a daily reminder that I am striving to be a better person in my faith and in my community. I observe the mitzvot and wear tallit katan not because of what others think but of my covenantal relationship with God thus I keep the tzitzit tucked in under my clothing because that relationship is deeply person and private.

Rabbi Avram Reisner in The Observant Life published contains a lengthy section on Medical Ethics and lays out in detail the issues surrounding the question of sperm donation for an infertile couple. There is a basic prohibition against “wasting seed.” The normative biblical use of sperm was for direct procreation. Rabbi Reisner lays out a strong case within Conservative Halakha (Jewish Law) that when a couple experiences infertility then the husband is permitted to masturbate in order to produce sperm to be used in artificial insemination.

In the case of an anonymous sperm donor, through a sperm bank, a concern was raised of the potential to create an incestuous relationship if the parentage is unknown. Most authorities agree that most sperm donors are non-Jewish and thus eliminating the halakhic definition of incest.

According to Rabbi Reisner, Rabbi Elliot Dorff confirms in his book Matters of Life and Death: a Jewish approach to Modern Ethics, that to help an “infertile couple is sufficient justification for emission not to be considered an act of wasting one’s seed.” However Rabbi Dorff raises the issue of sibling donation, “If donation of gametes is permissible, as Conservative thinkers tend to rule, may the sibling of one of the parties in an infertile couple provide the donation, thus maximizing the genetic match of the infertile parent’s own gametes?” (Page 786, The Observance Life). Rabbi Dorff believes that while there may be halakhic precedent for such an act, there are psychological issues which may arise from such an act. He uses the example of a rebellious child who rejects his father for his uncle, “his real father.” (Page 786, Observant Life). Great care must be taken when there are gamete donations between relatives.

As I examine the literature, I believe that one may become a sperm donor for a particular couple to ensure the couple is able to conceive children. The mitzvah exists for the donor and the couple to ensure they procreate and increase the Jewish community. However, I would caution both the donor and the couple to carefully consider all the ramifications of their actions in their relationship. The couple and donor should fully discuss the role of the donor in the child’s life and what rights if any, the donor is accorded with regard to the child. All three should be careful of the psychological issues which may arise if the child knows the sperm donor’s identity. Certainly if all points of view are considered and care is taken with delineating relationships then I believe it to be not only a mitzvah for someone to become a sperm donor for a couple, but desirable because together they will be strengthening the Jewish community.

For a more in depth discussion, I would suggest reading further in The Observant Life edited by Rabbi Martin Cohen and published by the Rabbinical Assembly, and Matters of Life and Death: a Jewish Approach to Modern Ethics written by Rabbi Elliot Dorff and published by The Jewish Publication Society.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN ANSWERS PROVIDED HEREIN ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL JVO PANEL MEMBERS, AND DO NOT
NECESSARILY REFLECT OR REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF THE ORTHODOX, CONSERVATIVE OR REFORM MOVEMENTS, RESPECTIVELY.